Equatorial Guinea - anyone been?

[Ozymandias]

Well, I failed on the first attempt to get to Equatorial Guinea this June, but I'm hoping to be more successful next year.

Does anyone here have any contacts over there who could help me out with sorting accommodation / logistics / paperwork? I have a travel writing assignment, so wouldn't just be sitting in Malabo. The Thorn Tree is full of failed attempts to get the visa or complaints about the shakedowns from the police. I'm thinking advice from someone on the ground might be useful.

[buffybot_in_beirut]

Was there 20 years ago, before the oil boom. Visa moderately difficult to get. Police etc. the worst in any African country (hassle, paranoia, bribes). I follow the TT stories, too, and from what I gather both aspects have gotten worse since the bastards found oil and got their behave-like-complete-assholes-for-free card. It's probably one of the most challenging countries to get into, and to visit once you are there. Pity because it's beautiful, particularly the island part and the setting of the capital.

Isn't there a local travel agency that can sort out a visa and photo permit for mega-bucks? But then it appear to me EQ's problem is it is so rich that they really don't need income/bribes/ridiculously high fees from tourists. One talk with a Texan oil executive and the fuckers secure more income than a million tourists spend in ten years in France. They can afford to be nasty to tourists because they are only a nuisance to them, and entirely irrelevant economically.

How about cozying up to an oil company with an offer to write an article about what brilliant job they are doing in this excemplary democratic paradise of EQ? An then, once you're in (with their help), do a bit of "extra work"...?

[Ozymandias]

I'm sure there is a Spanish travel agency that can hook me up for thousands of Euros, but it might just be cheaper to wing it and pay the bribes, especially given reports that organised tour groups don't seem to be immune from arrest either!

Cozying up to an oil company? Sounds interesting, but just like the government, I doubt they want people prying too much into what is going on over there.

This is going to be a tough one...

[nowonmai]

Do 20 years with the Legion then get a job working security. Plenty of boule a zero on that Malabo flight.

[Alessandro]

Take a sailboat with locals from Sao Tome, Annabon looks tempting.

[jphripjah]

I may go in April. It's still visa free for Americans right?

[south_sea_bubble]

Hey do you write for ozy?

[Ozymandias]

I'll be in Sao Tome in about a fortnight Alessandro. Not sure the EG authorities would be too happy with me randomly appearing on a boat though! jphripjah, have you got your trip sorted yet? I don't think I'll be going until later in the year. Hopefully that leaves me enough time to sort out the visas. As for who I'm writing for: dodgy location, few to no tourists, no guidebook already. Which company fits that profile?

[south_sea_bubble]

Brandt!

There's another Brandt writer here - SRR.

[jphripjah]

I'll be in Sao Tome in about a fortnight Alessandro. Not sure the EG authorities would be too happy with me randomly appearing on a boat though! jphripjah, have you got your trip sorted yet? I don't think I'll be going until later in the year. Hopefully that leaves me enough time to sort out the visas. As for who I'm writing for: dodgy location, few to no tourists, no guidebook already. Which company fits that profile?

I'm planning to go to Sao Tome and EG in about three weeks. As a US citizen I expect I will be admitted to Equatorial Guinea on arrival without a visa, right?